The world is going nuts. I have often felt a bit like Cassandra, but … Cassandra was right.

Here is another take.

From the pen of John Zmirak at The Stream with my emphases and comments:

The expected Supreme Court decision imposing on 50 states an entirely newunderstanding of marriage, and the frenzy of hatred that gay activists have stoked against Indiana for trying to shelter religious believers from crippling lawsuits should wake us to a cold and stark reality: The age of tolerance in America is vanishing before your eyes. The question is how Christians and other people of faith and good will are going to respond.

Let’s break this down in stark and simple terms: Not only were gay activists willing to overturn an act of Congress (the Defense of Marriage Act) on spurious grounds; they also wish to force their libertine idea of marriage onto voters in each of the 50 states, voiding dozens of laws on an issue that has always rested with the states. [So, it is not just an issue of sodomy. This is a constitutional issue.]

Not satisfied with that, these activists want the full force of the regulatory state to compel every single American to affirm and accept the delusion of same-sex “marriage,” under the same civil and criminal penalties that now forbid discrimination by race. [BUT… the “gay” thing is nothing like the civil rights issues of the 60’s. Comparing the “gay” thing and race is like comparing apples and carrots.] A famous case was a 70-year-old Christian florist who declined to decorate a gay wedding, and was crushed by a successful lawsuit and the full force of the ACLU’s legal team. She was one of the Brave New Law’s first victims. She will be far from the last. [That’s for sure.]

These activists use the power of city governments (as in San Francisco) to try to intimidate isolated Catholic schools into abandoning Christian teaching on sexual ethics. Such zealots corrupt the academic authorities who grant accreditation in order to financially cripple schools such as Gordon College that maintain Christian “morals” clauses as part of their hiring policies.

Those who defend the reality of marriage, including even unbelievers who defend freedom of religion and association, are not simply wrong — they are “bigots” and “haters” who deserve to be fined, boycotted and bankrupted; [Crucifige! Crucifige eum!] to lose their jobs like Brendan Eich, the ex-CEO of Mozilla, and face financial ruin — as Elton John hopes to break Dolce & Gabbana, and [follow the trajectory] as Apple CEO Tim Cook hopes to break the entire State of Indiana. Politicians are joining in, with the Connecticut governor, and Seattle and San Francisco mayors, banning official travel to Indiana. [It goes from bakers and florists, to schools to entire states. What’s next?]

As Austin Ruse points out, states such as Indiana are not giving Christians a pass to broadly discriminate against gays. Such religious freedom laws “deal with the very narrow question of whether vendors can be forced by the state to participate in religious ceremonies that violate their own religious consciences.”

The implicit message shouldn’t be missed: Say what you want in church for an hour every Sunday, but the rest of the week belongs to us.Your homophobic beliefs deserve no more protection than the religious use of peyote.

Scary.

Get your heads into that mental place where you will be able to face the persecution that is coming. You will be vilified, in especially venomous ways, even within the Church by catholics seeking to twist the Church into an instrument of social re-engineering.

In the Roman Rite, the washing of feet on Holy Thursday is an option. It may be left out without disturbing the integrity of the Holy Thursday Mass of the Last Supper (otherwise, it wouldn’t be a legitimate option).

Watch now as all sorts of people demand that bishops and priests violate the law because of what His Holiness Pope Francis did last year and plans to do this year. Watch as all manner of clerics hide behind the Pope when they choose openly to break the law and violate their promise to uphold the Church’s laws.

The problem with that is, liturgical law is real law. It must be obeyed.

The Church’s liturgical law is not ambiguous: only males can be chosen for this optional rite, and they should be men: viri selecti. Vir means “man”. Vir cannot, period, mean a female. And despite what Facebook says, there are two sexes, not dozens. Also, you really don’t get to choose which you are. Vir is male.

Also, lest it go unsaid, I am not speciesist, but the Church still limits this foot-washing rite to human beings.

Next, the Pope, who is the Church’s Legislator, can do A, B or C as it pleaseth him to do. If he wants to set aside the law, so be it.

The rest of us, however, are obliged, to obey the law. The ordained made promises at ordination to obey the Church’s laws.

So, we have a couple choices when it comes to the foot-washing rite (the “Mandatum” or “Command” – whence the word Maundy): don’t do the rite, or do the rite properly.

Two main excuses are offered in defense of the abuse of washing the feet of women.

The first excuse is that of “hospitality”. “Hospitality” suggests women must be “included”. Never mind that Mass isn’t that sort of “meal”. In the USA some might obtusely cite a note – having no canonical authority – from the (then) NCCB’s Committee on Liturgy in 1987 which uses this “hospitality” argument.

The second excuse is that of “inclusive” language, to which some of a certain age still cling. Keep in mind that quite a few clerics, of a certain age, haven’t really updated themselves by looking at the most recent edition of the Roman Missal, in English much less in Latin. They are snug in their fading memories that the English words in the now long-obsolete ICEL Sacramentary, “men” and “man”, couldn’t possibly mean “males”! That would be sexist! Again, Latin “vir” means “male”.

To repeat, when the Pope decides to derogate for himself from the liturgical law, that derogation doesn’t abolish the law for everyone else. The law remains.

We priests – and bishops – must obey the liturgical law which we do not have the authority to break or change.

The Church is not lawless. The Church is not merely a display case for people’s passing whims and changing fashions.

When and if the Holy Father wants the law to change for everyone, he will make sure that it is changed for everyone in the proper way and he will let everyone in the world know about it. The Holy Father knows how to change laws and promulgate the changes. Doing something in private on his own doesn’t change the law.

Until the Roman Pontiff changes the law, the law stands.

Men only, or no foot washing at all. Those are the two legitimate options.

Fathers, if you are afraid of the women in your parish, just opt out of the foot washing rite entirely. It is only an option. Fathers, if you don’t want the headaches and complaints and threats and tears and anger and hate-mail and voice-mail and glares and accusations, just say “no” to the foot washing option. Let the Mass be the Mass without the controversy. You are not obliged to violate the law and your promises.

The moderation queue is on. I’ll let quite a few stack up so that you are, initially at least, responding to the issue rather than to each other. Patience.

A 1,000-year-old treatment for eye infections could hold the key to killing antibiotic-resistant superbugs, experts have said.
Scientists recreated a 9th Century Anglo-Saxon remedy using onion, garlic and part of a cow’s stomach.
They were “astonished” to find it almost completely wiped out methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus, otherwise known as MRSA.
Their findings will be presented at a national microbiology conference.
The remedy was found in Bald’s Leechbook – an old English manuscript containing instructions on various treatments held in the British Library.
Anglo-Saxon expert Dr Christina Lee, from the University of Nottingham, translated the recipe for an “eye salve”, which includes garlic, onion or leeks, wine and cow bile.
Experts from the university’s microbiology team recreated the remedy and then tested it on large cultures of MRSA.
[…]

Oh those medieval types were soooo stupid.

And now from the great blog Pass The Garum an even more ancient recipe made new.

Moretum – Cheese, Herb and Garlic Spread

Moretum is a cheese, garlic, and herb spread mentioned in a wonderful little poem, also called Moretum, allegedly by Virgil. The poem tells us about the farmer Symilus and his morning meal. Waking up early, he lights his lamp and visits his grain stores. After spending some time milling the grain, Symilus has just enough flour to bake a loaf of bread. However, the farmer soon notices that he has no meat, and worries that the bread might not be tasty enough on its own, so he sets about making some moretum to go with it. Seeing as our bread could use a little lift, I’m going to follow this Roman farmer’s example and make some of this cheese spread. The whole poem, which really is worth a read, can be found by clicking here. It’s too long to post in full, so I’ve summarised the important bits here:

Symilus gathers four heads of garlic (!), celery, parsley, rue, and coriander seeds.
He grinds the garlic in his mortar and pestle, and adds salt and cheese.
He then adds the celery, rue, parsley, and coriander seeds.
The smell is so strong that it makes his eyes water!
Finally, he adds some olive oil and vinegar, finishes off the mixture, and slaps some on his freshly baked bread.

So, what to make of this? Well for one there is far too much garlic; Symilus might have been able to work alone in his field without his breath offending anyone, but most of us don’t have that luxury. I’ve toned it down a bit and used just half a clove. Secondly, Virgil mentions a bitter herb called ‘rue’ which I don’t have access to at the minute, so that’s been left out.

[…]

You’ll have to go over there to see the recipe. I have to try this stuff. Maybe tomorrow.

Ich do invyte yow to joyne me yn a celebracioun across the entyre globe of the erthe. Yn thys celebracioun we shal reade of oold bokes yn sondrye oold tonges. We shal singe olde songes. We shal playe olde playes. Eny oold tonge will do, and eny maner of readinge. All are welcome. We shal make merrye yn the magical dreamscape of ‘social media,’ and eke, yf ye kan do yt, yn the ‘real worlde’ too.

Ye maye, paraventure, wisshe to reade from the beginning of my Tales of Caunterburye, but ye maye also wisshe to reade of eny oothir boke or texte or scroll or manuscript that ye love. Ye maye even reade the poetrye of John Gower yf that ys yower thinge.

I know of a priest who imparts blessings over the telephone. Is this valid?

The Holy Father has the authority to impart a blessing by means of electronic transmission. The faithful, who are unable to be present where the Holy Father imparts, for example, the “urbi et orbi” blessing, may receive the indulgence if they devotedly follow the rites through TV or radio while the rite is being performed.

Other than that, I think that imparting and receiving a priestly blessing requires some form of physical presence.

Of course there is the more casual sort of way of blessing someone, to invoke God’s favor on people. In that case, there is no problem at all.

I have a question, it seems to be very common for priests to give a sort of mini-homily at the very beginning of Mass. This has always annoyed me very much, but I have not been able to tell if it is a liturgical abuse or something that is permitted by the Novus Ordo Missal, as I understand how strange it would be for a priest to turn around and give this briefing at the foot of the altar in the Extraordinary Form.

The General Instruction of the Roman Missal 50 states,

“After the greeting of the people, the Priest, or the Deacon, or a lay minister may very briefly introduce the faithful to the Mass of the day”.

That’s leaves a certain amount of latitude. The “very briefly” statement would seem to exclude any kind of a “mini-homily.” The intention of the Instruction seems to mean something along the lines of:

“Today we commemorate St. Christina the Astonishing, who was known to seek solitude by praying in a heated oven. May her devotion inspire our own.”

How do you think one should understand CIC c.917 with regard to the Good Friday presanctified liturgy? Specifically, since this liturgy takes the place of Mass for the day, and c.917 says, “iterum . . . intra eucharisticam celebrationem,” rather than, “iterum . . . intra Missam,” if one were to attend two liturgies on Good Friday, would they be permitted to receive Holy Communion at both, despite neither being a Mass?

Thank you for everything you do with this blog, and for your priesthood!

Context. As we have seen here many times on this blog, the Code of Canon Law for the Latin Church allows reception of Communion twice in one day, but the second time must be in the context of Mass (“Eucharistic celebration”).

The Good Friday rite isn’t really a “Eucharistic celebration”. It is certainly not a Mass. There is reception of Communion, but there is not a Eucharistic sacrifice.

So, no, you cannot receive Communion at a second Good Friday service. However, if you are in danger of death, then you can receive Viaticum.

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Grant unto thy Church, we beseech
Thee, O merciful God, that She, being
gathered together by the Holy Ghost, may
be in no wise troubled by attack from her
foes.
O God, who by sin art offended and by
penance pacified, mercifully regard the
prayers of Thy people making supplication
unto Thee,and turn away the scourges of
Thine anger which we deserve for our sins.
Almighty and Everlasting God, in
whose Hand are the power and the
government of every realm: look down upon
and help the Christian people that the heathen
nations who trust in the fierceness of their
own might may be crushed by the power of
thine Arm. Through our Lord Jesus Christ,
Thy Son, who liveth and reigneth with Thee
in the unity of the Holy Ghost, God, world
without end. R. Amen.

An outstanding opportunity to get into Latin and New Testament Greek

For Easter: another ethereal music CD from the chart-topping nuns…

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A bit more food for thought…

“Only one sin is nowadays severely punished: the attentive observance of the traditions of our Fathers. For that reason the good ones are thrown out of their places and brought to the desert.”

- Basil of Caesarea - ep. 243

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And they have tea too!

Food For Thought

“The legalization of the termination of pregnancy is none other than the authorization given to an adult, with the approval of an established law, to take the lives of children yet unborn and thus incapable of defending themselves. It is difficult to imagine a more unjust situation, and it is very difficult to speak of obsession in a matter such as this, where we are dealing with a fundamental imperative of every good conscience — the defense of the right to life of an innocent and defenseless human being.”

- St. John Paul II

PLEASE RESPOND. Pretty pleeeease?

Should the US Bishops have us return to obligatory "meatless Fridays" during the whole year and not just during Lent?

Because you don’t know when you are going to need to move fast or get along without the supermarket…

For your consideration…

"One of the most dangerous errors is that civilization is automatically bound to increase and spread. The lesson of history is the opposite; civilization is a rarity, attained with difficulty and easily lost. The normal state of humanity is barbarism, just as the normal surface of the planet is salt water. Land looms large in our imagination and civilization in history books, only because sea and savagery are to us less interesting."

- C.S. Lewis

Identity theft is a serious problem that you do NOT want to have. I use Lifelock.

And for your cybersecurity…

Wyoming Catholic College!

A great place in Rome…

More food for thought:

“I expect to die in bed, my successor will die in prison and his successor will die a martyr in the public square. His successor will pick up the shards of a ruined society and slowly help rebuild civilization, as the church has done so often in human history.”

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More food for thought…

"All laws which are repugnant to the Constitution are null and void."

- Marbury v. Madison, 5 U.S. 137, 176

Even More Food For Thought

"Men by their constitutions are naturally divided into two parties:
1. Those who fear and distrust the people, and wish to draw all powers from them into the hands of the higher classes.
2. Those who identify themselves with the people, have confidence in them, cherish and consider them as the most honest and safe, although not the most wise depositary of the public interests."

Additional Food For Thought

“And how we burned in the camps later, thinking: What would things have been like if every Security operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive and had to say good-bye to his family? Or if, during periods of mass arrests, as for example in Leningrad, when they arrested a quarter of the entire city, people had not simply sat there in their lairs, paling with terror at every bang of the downstairs door and at every step on the staircase, but had understood they had nothing left to lose and had boldly set up in the downstairs hall an ambush of half a dozen people with axes, hammers, pokers, or whatever else was at hand?... The Organs would very quickly have suffered a shortage of officers and transport and, notwithstanding all of Stalin's thirst, the cursed machine would have ground to a halt! If...if...We didn't love freedom enough. And even more – we had no awareness of the real situation.... We purely and simply deserved everything that happened afterward.”

- Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Fathers, you don’t know who might show up! It could be a “big fish” of one sort or other…

And... GO TO CONFESSION!

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Food For Thought

“Men are qualified for civil liberty in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains upon their own appetites. . . . Society cannot exist unless a controlling power upon will and appetite be placed somewhere; and the less of it there is within, the more there must be without. It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things, that men of intemperate minds cannot be free. Their passions forge their fetters.”

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